I don’t often follow the headlines on my Google Reader, but I followed this one and am glad I did. The amount of money taken out of my check every week is ludicrous, but I’d be a lot less upset about it if taxation was equal across the board and if more of my tax money was actually going to good causes like those discussed below rather than bailing out the likes of GM or buying new toilet seats for the White House.

You want something to protest? How ’bout protesting how little we give back to our veterans? Or how ’bout protesting that the entire budget of the National Cancer Institute (where government researchers battle a disease that will strike half of all men and a third of all women) is 0.03 percent of what we gave the bandits at American International Group alone? Oh, but veterans benefits and cancer research might cost money. It might require — dare I say it? — paying taxes.

If the whiners at Fox News want to advertise their selfishness, they are free to do so. But please don’t dress it up as patriotism. Patriotism is putting your country ahead of yourself — which is the precise opposite of what the tea party plutocrats are doing./a>.